Free Sample Essays > European History
What were the important effects of the Black Death upon Europe?
There have been many diseases reported historically such as small pox, measles and typhoid but none were as dreadful as the Black Death. In order to understand the devastation of this disease we must look at the effects it had on the political, economical, art and cultural structures of medieval Europe. The Black Death first appeared in Europe in 1347 when Italian trading ships brought it from the East. Within a few years it had spread all over Europe.
There was great population loss. A third of the population of Europe died from the outbreak. In many European cities population had descended up to 50 percent or more. Bremen in Germany lost almost 7,000 of its 12,000 inhabitants. The prosperous city of Florence, Italy, may have lost 40,000 of its nearly 90,000 inhabitants. Nearby Siena probably lost two-thirds of its urban population. Paris, the largest city north of the Alps, lost more than 50,000 of its 180,000 inhabitants. Most major cities were quickly forced to dig hundreds of graveyards where the dead could be buried. Many towns and villages lost almost their populations and some were completely wiped out. Survivors from the villages and towns would run away to other regions, spreading the disease even further. Larger towns fell drastically as their workforces and merchant classes either died or fled. Long-term population loss is also instructive. Urban populations recovered quickly, in some cases within a couple of years, through immigration from the countryside because of increased opportunities in the cities. Rural population though, recovered itself slowly, for peasants left their farms for the cities. The population losses could have recovered quickly but more outbreaks prevented a return to high population levels of the period before 1347. European population only began to grow in the last decades of the 15th century.
The plague also brought economic changes. Financial business was disrupted as debtors died and their creditors had no one to pay them. Construction projects had stopped or were abandoned altogether. Guilds lost their craftsmen and could not replace them. Mills and other special machinery might break and the one man in town who had the skill to repair it had died in the plague. The labour shortage was very severe and wages rose. The death of so many people brought wealth to the survivors. The workers who remained could earn up to five times more of what they were earning before the plague. So the standard of living rose for those still alive. Effects in the rural areas were just as severe. Farms and entire villages died out and there was only wild cattle left roaming through the deserted villages. Whole families died, with no heirs, their houses standing empty. Landlords stopped freeing their serfs. They tried to get more forced labour from them, as there were fewer peasants to be had. Peasants in many areas began to demand fairer treatment or lighter burdens. The whole community of scholars suffered as universities and schools, usually located in regions hardest hit, were closed or [next page]